Reading Spaces, Spaces for Reading: A look at Singapore’s Culture of Reading: This article comes to us courtesy...

More crucially, publishing and reading in Singapore take place within a unique set of operating principles accumulated over years of legislative development, bureaucratic caution, and literary selection. Take journalism, for example. Despite the number of prominent lawsuits against journalists and news publications pursued over the years, the issue with publishing journalism in Singapore is not the rule of law (which is robustly defended) but the rule of vague law. As journalism professor Cherian George describes it, this consists of “vaguely worded” restrictions that operate without judicial review. As George points out, “the executive can revoke or deny a publishing permit at any time and is under no legal obligation to give any reasons.” Literary publications in Singapore depend on a combination of ingredients for success, among them shrewd manuscript selection and gran...